Croatian player manages to get booted from World Cup for refusing to play.

According to Mirror Football Croatia sent home striker Nikola Kalinic due to his refusal to come on as a sub in their opener against Nigeria.

Now let me play Devil’s advocate here and let the millions thousands hundreds tens of readers know that Kalinic is claiming a back injury is to blame for his refusal to play. HOWEVER, it’s the World fucking Cup!! I’d like to think that most in this situation would play through a goddamn heart attack considering this event only comes around once every four years but Nikola isn’t like most people.

Looking up his rating in FIFA 18 it’d appear Nikola is your typical run of the mill striker, but one area EA Sports obviously beefed up his stats is in the physical department. With a very “Fake News” aggression rating of 70 instead of 0 and strength rating of 78 it’s very obvious Nikola has a developer or two on the payroll at EA. I’ll go ahead and rework his ratings as soon as FIFA finishes downloading on my Xbox today. (Thank me for my service)

I’m all the way Team Croatia here, if he refuses to play there’s going to be about a hundred other tough, gritty Croatians ready to step up and represent their country in the biggest sporting event in the world. (Sorry Super Bowl) This doesn’t do anything but help pile on the stereotype that soccer players aren’t tough. When you’ve seen a diva like TO who maybe considered one of the softer players in the NFL play in the Super Bowl with a broken leg, or Ronnie Lott cut his pinky off mid game, sitting out with a backache is seen as a puss move in comparison. Also, as a former high school soccer player I’ve played through getting knocked out and head to head collisions (sup CTE). So I’m going to go ahead and side with the people calling out Nikola for quitting on his country.

NIKOLA THERE’S ONLY ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE YOU AND I’M GONNA SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU!!!!